Parramatta school for Aborigines supports a policy of assimilation

The Parramatta school for Aborigines supports a policy of assimilation. Governor Macquarie establishes the Native Institution at Parramatta. It takes some pupils from the “Female Orphan School”. Girls formerly removed from The Branch Natives are transferred to the new Parramatta Native Institution. Hawkesbury Darkinjung children are among the founding students at the Institution. At least three are children of ‘Branch natives’. Others were brought in from surrounding groups including the northern Blue Mountains. Six year old Maria from Richmond Hill is educated there. Maria remains at the Institution until she is 14 and later marries Dicky, a young Aboriginal boy who has also been fostered by the white community. Dicky dies tragically shortly afterwards. (Census 1828, Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association, ACRA, Ford p145-48, 361)